


Change Your Name And Throw Lavish Parties In Order To Touch The Skin Of Other Men

by kiyyeisanerd



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:45:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19838194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyyeisanerd/pseuds/kiyyeisanerd
Summary: Crowley constructs intricate rituals...A Great Gatsby AU, as suggested by tumblr user floralpoetrybro in this excellent post: https://floralpoetrybro.tumblr.com/post/185843704583/cool-cool-cool-cool-great-gatsby-au-where-crowley





	1. East Egg

**Author's Note:**

> This is rather short because I've never written for this fandom and I'm still sussing out the wildly different prose style, but I hope to write more soon! So stay tuned!

Anthony Crowley owned a manor bigger than any other West Egg had to offer. The gardens on his property were more verdant than any jungles New York's socialites had ever seen. Not that they’d seen many jungles. People whispered—said the inside of the place was like a jungle, too. The man was crazy about his flora.

News of him reached East Egg slowly, like water trickling down windows after a long shower nobody had bothered to notice. His name cropped up in clipped conversations: “That Crowley fellow, what’s his business?” or, “What sort of operation does he run?” The word operation was usually pronounced with a husky tone and a knowing squint, implying the speaker already knew what kind of “operation” they had in mind before asking. So it was a pointless question, but often repeated. Never to Crowley, though. Never to Crowley’s face.

Aziraphale Angel was a perfectly good gentleman of acceptable proportions and passable taste. He looked older than he was, and he read books older than he had any right to read. Guests smiled politely when they met him. He was personable, but he gave off a subtle impression like he wanted to promptly be left alone in a dimly lit room with a volume of Proust and a warm drink. This impression was entirely accurate.

He lived with his family in a stupendous mansion they had owned for many generations. Legend had it, the Angels might have been there in the heart of East Egg since the Beginning. This legend was tossed around over dinner, mostly to the effect of pleasing Aziraphale’s cousin Gabriel, who enjoyed flattery almost as much as he enjoyed polo and men’s retail stores.

Gabriel’s square jaw and disarming eyes demanded the attention of any person he met. His shoulders were broad enough for bejeweled women to drag their eyes across languidly; an important feature if you’re single and very, very wealthy.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, had a somewhat oval-shaped silhouette. He had hardly any shoulders to speak of. In fact, his shoulders were not spoken of at all, and neither was the rest of him very much.

He only routinely suffered dinner with his relatives because of how fond he was of food. If not for his expensive tastes in cuisine, he would much rather hide away in the library every evening. The air there smelled like old books and french wine, and he could barely hear Gabriel’s mustard-thick voice coming through the walls. Still, he wished the man didn’t talk so loud.

The Angels were eating dinner when Crowley’s name first entered their house.

“So,” boomed Gabriel, poking performatively at his roasted lamb, “gossip’s abound in West Egg.”

“West Egg,” echoed Uriel.

“West Egg,” Gabriel confirmed. The name rolled off his tongue like it had a bad taste. “Some stud named Crowley bought an enormous mansion. Nobody knows where he got the dough, though. The money, I mean—nothing doing with baking.”

Aziraphale paled. He lowered his wine glass, careful not to make a scene. He had the peculiar sensation that his chest was clogged up with salt water.

Nobody noticed him. Gabriel impaled a particularly meaty chunk of lamb and chewed it thoughtfully. “Suspicious, don’t you think?” he asked the table.

The table didn’t seem interested in West Egg gossip. Sandalphon swirled his mashed potatoes in a violent pattern. Everybody knew the silence infuriated Gabriel, but nobody could quite think of anything interesting to say.

“Ah—I’d best be going,” said Aziraphale, standing slowly so as to avoid scraping his chair. “ _The Count Of Monte Cristo_ isn’t going to read itself, after all.”

Gabriel searched for a reason to tease, to keep him at the table, but Aziraphale’s plate was already cleaned. He stabbed another piece of lamb and waved his fork as a goodbye. “Don’t sit too hard, or you might turn into a chair.”

“Nice one,” whispered Michael as Aziraphale disappeared down the hallway.

Gabriel executed a noncommittal shrug. “Not my best.”

* * *

Aziraphale settled into his book. Only, he didn’t settle into it at all, because his fingers barely grazed the edges and his mind was off somewhere entirely else without written words to guide him.

Anthony Crowley. It was just a name. But a familiar one, too close to the phonetic makeup of a distant memory he had tried very hard to bury. Memories had a funny way about them because they didn’t like to stay underground. They were always popping back to the surface and saying hello.

 _Crowley_. Aziraphale didn’t know if he wanted to meet this man, or if he never wanted to hear about him again. It was almost as if Aziraphale could feel him from across the bay between East and West egg now, and he felt desperately dangerous. He felt like a mistake waiting to be made, or a rather large amount of hard-earned comfort waiting to be upended.

Surely it couldn’t be him. The face that superimposed itself over the window of Aziraphale’s mind did not _necessarily_ belong to the West Egg man named Anthony Crowley, he had to remember that. He needn’t get swept away. He didn’t know for sure it was _him_.

Somewhere, deep down, he did know. But that wouldn’t stop him from finding out the old fashioned way.

He tried to focus on _The Count Of Monte Cristo_. He’d read it thrice already, of course. It was one of his favorites. Such a dramatic story—love, betrayal, separation, disguises, revenge and retribution. The Will of God.

He shuddered and closed the book. Perhaps something a little lighter, for now.


	2. West Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anthony Crowley chats with a neighbor.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Anthony Crowley twirled a glass of champagne slowly around in circles. He was sunk deep into an armchair, skinny legs crossed at the ankles. Despite his unorthodox sprawl, his suit hadn’t a single wrinkle.

“Honestly? Not really,” replied Anathema Device. Her dress was darker than her eyes, which were just darker than her expression. “I don’t know why you invited me.”

Crowley made no expression, just sipped his drink languidly. “Thought it would be polite.”

“Did you really?”

Anathema looked the man over. She had only seen him on two other occasions: once when he had been staring aimlessly past the pier, and once when he had been staring longingly out his window. On the first occasion, she had imparted to him a bit of wisdom.

“I wanted,” Crowley started, sitting up somewhat, “I wanted to ask you about what you said the other day.”

“Go on,” Anathema replied curtly.

Crowley wetted his lips. “You said he wouldn’t come.”

“Yes. That’s the exact wording. Interpret the meaning to your own abilities.”

“The exact wording of what?”

“A prophecy of mine. You don’t have to believe me, but people usually do.”

Crowley took another calculated sip from his glass. Anathema couldn’t tell where his eyes were roaming beneath his dark glasses, but she decided to let him take his time with the information. She stood abruptly and crossed over to one of the library’s tall, creaky shelves.

After a moment of browsing spines, she asked, “Do you read?”

“No,” Crowley muttered. “Never much liked to.”

“Big library for a man who doesn’t read.”

“It’s not for me.”

Anathema turned, cornering him with her gaze. “You need my help.”

“Dunno. Possibly. What with?”

“Getting him to come. I don’t know what that means. Problems in the bedroom,” she waved a hand, “maybe he’s away on holiday, whatever. You’ll have to clarify the details.”

Crowley had indiscreetly started choking on his drink. His cheeks were too rosy to blame the alcohol. “It’s not,” he coughed, “not quite like that. You’re wrong.”

“Where won’t he come? On a date with you? To the beach? Anthony, if I’m going to help you—”

Crowley set his drink down on the end table and removed his glasses. He completed the action with such punctuality and precision that he caught Anathema’s attention like a ship in a tempest. His eyes were sunken, containing such deep sorrow that they could pull on a soul until it begged for escape.

And just as fleetingly, he let her go with a blink. He let his eyebrows settle as if he’d just proved a point. “I want him,” he said quietly, “to attend one of my parties.”

Anathema sat back in her chair. “Who?”

“Aziraphale Angel.”

“Angel?” she repeated, wheels spinning beneath her skull in comprehension. “I know him. He lives in a great big East Egg estate.”

Crowley’s eyes lit up. “You know him?”

“Yes, my family—I’m from East Egg, grew up there all my life. I only moved here because of a,” she swallowed a laugh, “well, you can guess.”

“Prophecy?” Crowley guessed.

“Yeah. You want Aziraphale Angel at one of your parties?”

“Yes,” he breathed. His eyes added the word, _desperately_.

Anathema shrugged judgmentally. “Doesn’t seem the type.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t seem the type, that’s all I’m saying. Bookish, isn’t he?”

“He likes… lavish things. Cuisine.”

“Okay, but what if he doesn’t like _parties_. Is this your whole strategy? Throw giant booze-fests and wait until he shows up?”

Crowley brooded into his glass. “He likes… wine.”

“He won’t come. You want to see him, right? I can just arrange it.”

“You would do that?”

“Of course,” Anathema nodded.

She could see that Crowley was careful not to let his breath stop, or to let his posture shift too abruptly. He had worked long and hard at hiding his body language. He took another sip and nodded back, hair falling over his wet eyes.

“When?” he asked.

“Tuesday. My house. Midday.”

Crowley seemed lost in contemplation.

“He’ll be there,” Anathema reassured.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sdskjfgkhdhg it's so weird how writing style can change so drastically between fandoms. Usually my chapters run 1k-4k but these are like not even 900 words??? But it works better if they're shorter and more conservative! 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed chapter two! More coming soon :D

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this first little bit of the story :D The Great Gatsby and Good Omens are basically my favorite two books ever, so I had to take a crack at this AU. More coming soon!


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